kurtvd19

Mike: I was watching - here's what I did with the decks. The main deck and boiler deck are painted with Badger Acrylic Modelflex Marine Paint #16-401 Anti-Fouling Red Oxide (same as Boxcar Red Oxide #16-14 in their Modelflex RR paint colors). I use only Badger Acrylic Modelflex Marine Paints and use Badger airbrushes except for the occasional brush touch up. The finger joints on the boiler deck and the upper decks went together seamlessly with just some filling of the butt joints. The "tarpaper" on the upper decks/roofs is Silkspan meant for aircraft models. I think rice paper would work as a substitute as I think it was mentioned somewhere on MSW that Silkspan isn't being made for the aircraft modelers now. The tarpaper is glued down to the deck using Artists Matt Medium. The brand I used is Winsor & Newton Galeria Acrylic Medium. It is a think, white liquid that dries completely clear. I used a scalpel to cut the silkspan into scale 3 ft wide strips. I kept the scale length to 20 ft or so. The silkspan was laid onto a sheet of glass and the matt medium was brushed onto the silkspan getting a good coat onto it. The strip was laid down onto the deck/rook and smoothed into place. The next strip was laid end to end with the first with a slight overlap - you want the overlap to show. About a scale 3-4 inches. The strips were laid down the full length of the exposed deck. The next strips were overlapped along the length of the strips about the same as the end to end joints on the first strips. The end to end seams were also overlapped. Don't worry if a bit of the matt medium oozes out of the seams as it will have a slightly darker appearance that will look just like tar had oozed out of the joint. The lower photo shows the tarpaper seams - sorry about the construction dust in the photo. The surface was brush painted after the strips were all in place using Badger Acrylic Modelflex Marine Paint #16-413 Wrought Iron Black (Same as Weathered Engine Black [#16-05] in Badgers RR line of Modelflex Paints. Looking at many riverboat photos show that with very few exceptions tarpaper covered the upper decks that also served as roofs. There were sometimes planks laid out to make walk ways to prevent foot traffic from opening up leaks. These decks were for crew use only. Any area of these upper decks intended for passenger use had planks provided as a walking surface. The planks in passenger areas were held together with cross wise battens on the underside - this also elevated the planks a bit off the surface to keep things dry under the planks. I hope this helped. Kurt

Mike: Like Carl said, you can't let us down. You learn from a mistake, do the best you can do and try to do better next time. This is what it is all about. I think the deck looks pretty good now. Kurt

Mike: I have attached 2 photos of my Chaperon when it was under construction. Sorry but these are the best photos I have of the area in question but they might help. If you are able to very lightly sand the paint to knock off a bit of the shine I think that you will have a pretty nice deck. The areas of the notched plank joints are pretty well hidden once the model is finished and as suggested some bit of cargo can hide most of it, but I just went into my loft to examine the model and with the location of the joints between the back of the boilers and just ahead of the cabin I just can't see the joint at all. The first photo shows the deck with the starboard cabin walls in place and the port side ready for the walls to be put in place. The seams are directly forward of the end of the forward end (left in photo) of the cabin walls. In the lower photo this area is shown with the main deck completely finished. With the railings at the deck edge there just isn't much visibility of the planking seams. As to the lack of plank butt joints the only areas this will be visible is the fore deck area and the aft decking by the Chaperon name. It's your decision regarding planking over the deck. As to the holes for the various posts and locating the structures I would handle these as you do the planking by notching the planks for each square hole as you fit the planks that will cover them. I found that I had to fit each post to it's hole by either enlarging the hole with a square file or sanding the bottom end of the post. Mark the planks as you cover any of the laser scribed locating lines. Doing it this way would eliminate the need for a pattern. Using think planking the trim board at the perimeter of the deck might need to be a bit wider or you might be able to use the kit provided pieces - I just don't remember how much they extended below the kit's deck. I hope this helps. Kurt

Jim: I have had one for 15 years or so. Very smooth. 10X better than anything Dremel makes. Not noisy. Occasional lubricating of the flex shaft drive is needed but it's real easy - lube is in a tube - disconnect from the tool, drop some lube into the flex shaft housing reattach. I have the cc model with the std hand piece. Very happy with it. I don't use it for carving any more as I now have a dental machine for carving but the Foredom is a fine tool. It will go very slow and I have done a lot of trimming with sanding drums of fiberglass and styrene w/o melting the styrene. It can also spin like crazy to hog out wood. Kurt

Mike: Sounds like you have the problem solved. Roger: That's interesting - but we would probably need a scale cow! I have to sit down and do a page by page read of both of Bates' books. Have used them for reference many times reading the relevant parts but you have convinced me that a thorough read is due. Thanks, Kurt

Mike: Test on scrap basswood. The frets that the parts came out of works well - same exact wood so results will be same. Kurt

Mike: Looking good. The deck is glued down tight so there is no worry about warping at this point. I airbrush, but this works with brush too. Wet the wood - dampen the wood is more accurate - let it dry and you will see that it has fuzzed up. Sand lightly to knock off the fuzz and dampen it again. Re-sand and then paint. There might still be a bit of fuzz, but much less. A very light final sanding will give a smooth surface. I use a very worn sponge sanding pad (by 3M) for this. Another way to avoid the soaking in of the paint and fuzzing of the basswood is to apply Shellac to the wood - the Shellac seals the wood. A very light sanding and then paint. Kurt

Mike: I would go with the oxide red for the decks and the wheel. Anything red would be the same red. Kurt

Elijah: Looking good. Very good. Kurt

Mike: Put it in a case!! I used to make a lot of $$ cleaning models that were not in cases - gave it up as it was sad to see the same models a few years later that had deteriorated more by the constant exposure. Kurt

Dead flat will be most accurate. Kurt

Mick: Outstanding work. Thanks for sharing this with us. Every time somebody asks us about the plans I tell them to check out your build. Thanks, Kurt

Will: Here are some photos of the jig used by several modelers who built the longboat for the Tri-Club build. It should be self evident how the jig is made and used, but if you have a question just ask. Kurt

Mike: No, I didn't forget, just very busy. Will get them to you this coming week for sure. I agree that Oxide Red is a good color for decks and the wheel. It was commonly used and cheap. The Ronnberg colors are not on the NRG website. However, they are in the Shop Notes 2 book we sell from the web site. The printing of the colors was expensive to assure they were accurately duplicated in the SN2 and for the accuracy of the colors to be true showing them on the website is not possible due to many variables in monitors. Kurt

Mike: I told you not to dread the hull planking. It looks good. Kurt

Sal: The article Roger mentioned is not yet available in the store but I am checking to see if it has been converted to go up onto the site or not. If it has been converted I can arrange to get it o you for the same fee as listed on the web site store. we have a lot more articles than are listed ready to go but we are contemplating a site revision and don't want to make double work for the web masters. Those additional articles will be available once we sort out if we are going to change. Otherwise I can print the pages in question off the CD's we sell, with all of the Journals archived, and can arrange to mail it to you. I will post here when I find out one way or the other about the availability / method. Kurt

Elijah: We missed you at the meeting last night - have fun in camp. Kurt

I agree 100% with Cathead on the colors. Red was by far the most common deck color though brown was also used. Most hulls were white but black was also used. Check the photos I had posted of the Chaperon to see the white hull, but the photo I posted of the model made by Sam Parent had a black hull and made a very attractive boat. If you are going to model the Chaperon as the Chaperon then I would definitely go with the white hull but if you change the name use black or white. Kurt

Yeah, Cathead, I agree - very interesting and I am going to do some checking on the sources Roger has cited. I figured a boat was a boat - but being wider than average sure makes sense for the use. The Chapelle book though is the one I do not have! Kurt

Mike: Do not dread planking this hull. It's pretty straightforward. I wet the planks that needed fitting for about 2 minutes, clamped them in place till dry and then glues them in place - no stress on the glue joints. Just be careful with clamping force as the basswood can crush easily when wet. Kurt

Glenn: The window frames are fantastic. I love the technique you used - and I will copy it when the need arises for windows. The same for the fantastic doors and the milling technique used for the rails & stiles. Definite outside of the box thinking came up with these techniques. Thanks for sharing. Kurt

Mike: The photo shows a flat roof - covered with simulated tar paper - and it matches the photos of the real Chaperon I posted earlier. I am confused by your description of the roof. The decorations surrounding the roof are kit supplied. The photo is of the pilot house prior to it being installed onto the model. I tend to keep the installation of small pieces until later in the build when possible, to avoid knocking bits off during construction. Mike, it's only my opinion, but I do not like the King of the Mississippi kit as I think it's unrealistic . However, that's my opinion and if you like it by all means go ahead with it. There is only one person you need to please with the model you build - YOU. You are the Captain of your boat and you can paint it the color you like, add anything you like and make it YOUR model. I am curious as to what the others think about the KotM kit. Take a look at the Train Troll web site for some realistic small towboat / tug kits. I just built the Smokey Duck kit and saw all of their kits (assembled) at the last NRG Conference. I have the Smokey Duck in it's case displayed atop the Chaperon's case. Same scale and it makes a great contrast. But the kit is among the best engineered kits I have built and I will build more. www.traintroll.com Kurt

Mike: When you get to the pilothouse I will post some photos of the changes to make to the kit. Here is the altered pilot house. Kurt

Roger: W/o taking over Mike's build - I read your comments about the flat bottomed boats with interest - makes perfect sense. And I don't dispute that this might have been the most common type of boat carried. Like I said it makes sense. But I thought that this was something I should have caught doing my research. So I went to my file on the Chaperon to see what the photos I have might tell me about the boats on the Chaperon. I have a whole bunch more of the Chaperon than what I have posted here. And some show only a direct side view of the boats on the Chaperon and from a profile I can't tell if they are flat bottomed or not though some show a low rake angle at the bow which makes me think you are partly correct as related to the Chaperon. However, the photos I have attached of the Chaperon do show that the boats in the photos are not flat bottomed boats with large flares. They do have flat transoms unlike the kit boats though one photo (bottom photo) does show a boat almost identical to the kit boats. These are the photos from my collection with the best views of the boats - most don't even show the boats due to angles and some are too fuzzy to tell. So, at least in the case of the Chaperon the kits boats can be used with some authenticity. But, I am going to look into this further. You don't per chance have any idea of what issues of the Journal might have had the plan(s) you referred to? Maybe we should take this to the other forum on general discussion STEAMBOATS & OTHER RIVERCRAFT - GENERAL DISCUSSION so Mike's build log isn't taken over by this? Although if we keep it to the Chaperon it's a fit here. Take care, Kurt

Mike: I will be following. Don't hesitate to ask anything about this build. I did a 6 issue build of it in Ships in Scale magazine and if I don't remember any specific detail I have all my text and photos to fall back on. I probably have a photo of just about anything you might run into building the Chaperon and will be glad to post to help. I mentioned that these riverboats didn't use the small panes of glass for windows in the pilothouse. The drawings below are of the original Chaperon plans and then the drawing (Fig. 99) from Alan Bates' Steamboat Cyclopedium showing the typical arrangement of windows. They agree very closely but the kit provides small window panes for the front "window" area that never actually had any sort of window glass. The front frame pieces were cut down and used to make sliding windows on the sides as shown on the Fig. 99 drawing from the Bates book. Kurt